Football Friday: Road Trip! All-Eagle clash in Indy; Green grapple in West Terre Haute; Tiger Cubs look to hunt down Patriots; Cougars aim for third win against Eagles

Week eight has become an all or nothing week in terms of finding a football game to watch in Putnam County.

As per the case in 2022, all four teams will be on the road this week with Greencastle at Owen Valley, North Putnam at Brown County, Cloverdale at West Vigo and South Putnam at Heritage Christian.

With a pair of wins in a row to lift them above .500, the Tiger Cubs will be tasked with slowing down a Patriot offense that, in short, hasn’t been.

Owen Valley’s steady blend of run (1,434 yards) and pass (1,318 yards) through seven games has allowed it to maintain an unbeaten record this season, despite a pair of close calls against Indian Creek and Sullivan

Brody Lester continues to keep things ticking along in the air, completing nearly 70 percent of his passes with 18 touchdowns and only four interceptions while adding another 386 yards on the ground.

Christian McDonald continues to lead the ground attack with 710 yards and 15 scores while also leading the team in receiving yards (386), followed closely by Chris Zellstra (376) and Brayden Phillippe (322), the latter adding six touchdowns via reception.

Greencastle has been the beneficiary of seven turnovers in the last two weeks, working short fields and putting up over 100 points in wins over Brown County and Cloverdale and will need to continue being ball hawks as the Patriots will not be lacking in the size that the Tiger Cubs have had an advantage in the past two weeks, particularly along the front lines.

After getting its second win of the season against West Vigo, North Putnam will look to make it two in a row heading to Brown County.

The Eagles have been on the wrong end of the scoreboard each week, having given up 386 points in seven weeks of play and, against a Cougar offense that has begun to find its footing, the tally is likely to vault past 400 points this week.

North Putnam piled up over 500 yards of offense against the Vikings, 319 coming on the ground with Noah Claycomb getting 251 yards for himself on 36 carries.

Christian Kramer was responsible for seven scores, running in three while throwing for four more on 15-of-19 passing, handing out scores to Wes Murphy, Myles Bryan, Paxton O’Brien and Braxton Mitchell.

Of concern for the Cougars was a run defense that was gashed for 355 yards on just 27 carries with two runs of 50-plus yards given up for scores, an area North Putnam will have to shore up as sectional play starts to come in to vision.

Cloverdale will get its own chance to test the mettle of West Vigo this week, looking to shake off a disappointing showing against Greencastle in which its only points came off a late safety.

While the Clovers showed far more discipline against the Tiger Cubs than in recent weeks, three turnovers and an inability to get any offense going, gaining on 12 total yards of offense, harkened back to games of previous years in which the team was dominated in all phases of the game.

Against a Wing-T system, Cloverdale will have to be able to end drives quickly on defense as the Vikings have shown the ability to put up large amounts of yards on the ground and digging an early hole will be very difficult to climb out of if West Vigo holds the ball for long stretches of time.

The game of the week will come from the northeast side of Indianapolis where the red and blue, A No. 6 Eagles will face the white and blue, 2A No. 8 Eagles, picking back up a short series that saw each team host a game in 2019 (Heritage Christian, 30-6) and 2020 (South Putnam, 27-18).

Heritage Christian has rallied late to win its last two games, a 34-28 win over Covenant Christian and a 42-38 win over Lapel, using a good blend of pass (1,559 yards) and run (1,393) over the course of the season.

Kyle Antoine runs the offense out of a spread look, passing for 1,482 yards on 94-of-146 attempts for 17 touchdowns and five interceptions. Antoine is also second in rushing with 577 yards on 61 attempts, trailing only halfback CJ Opper (100 carries, 592 yards, eight touchdowns), who will often lineup beside Antoine.

While four receivers have over 100 yards this year, Luke Valerio (722 yards, six touchdowns) and Christian Dora (444 yards, seven touchdowns) are the primary threats on the outside as the host Eagles look to get in space quickly to move the ball.

Defensively, Heritage Christian uses a four-man front with two linebackers and five defensive backs with Collin Thompson leading the team with 72 tackles while Collin Jones leads the team in tackles for loss (10) and sacks (six).